First off, I had to talk to the guys back at work. Even though I am supposed to be off, I had to work the past week on a proposal. (Since there is no one left to do it but me).
I only had a few minutes to talk to them and get the latest news, which is about normal. I then took off to have my little visit with the new family Doctor. I now have a lady Doctor. We will see how that goes in December when I get my yearly physical. Today was just a meeting and minor check up so she could get most of my records fixed out, although I had complaints about my aches and pains and other things most of what I had was weeks ago and she knew it was too late now to check for most of the things I had complained about, but we will be ready for next time? She did make a few recommendations and I will need to set some appointments for seeing my specialists in August.
After that I came back and decided that I needed to get a brace on my rain gauge for the weather station. A few days ago I moved the sending unit off the platform in hopes it would stabilize the gauge and stop the “wind rain”. That was a total failure from what I saw. Yesterday we had winds over 23 mph and I was recording ‘wind rain’ nearly all day long – the the total of 2 inches. All that before the real rain came late last evening and that was barely over a 1/4 inch. So today I searched out a brace to put under the platform and hope that it would stabilize the gauge to quit “bouncing”. I measured and got the parts, cut the length and drilled some holes in it but of course one of the holes I needed for the end of the brace was not right. So on my third trip to the roof – The gauge is on the roof of the external garage:
The thing on the roof behind the motorhome stuff… to the right and all white… that is about 21 feet off the ground – the top of the door behind is 14 feet.
Anyway I had to get up there several times and the last time I just took the drill to get the hole right and put a screw in the strap brace. Operating from that high off the ground is not something I am good at anymore and while holding the support and drilling I slipped and the drill made a nice hole in my finger. At first I thought it was just a bruise as it wasn’t bleeding or anything so I tried to get the screw in the hole and then as I squeezed the finger it decided to bleed. I must have slow blood? Anyway I got down again – with out putting the screw in and got a paper towel from the shop to hold over the “leak”. It didn’t look too bad but was flowing pretty good so I used a little pressure and found the triple antibiotic and some band-aids… got it patched up, stopped the bleeding and went back up to finish my job. Now I sure hope that eliminates the bounce of the rain gauge as it has been a real pain in my …….. finger and other places.
I put most of the stuff away and headed off to lunch. After lunch I checked out a couple of places for parts for my Dads old phone. I didn’t find what I wanted but in the process I had to get gas and then try to get an extension cord for the last security camera I put up. I had put I up temp so I needed to run a permanent extension to it and thought I could get a 20 ft. white cord for it. When I got to Lowes to check on that I found that all they had in that length was some orange ones so I figures, just use the one I have not and nail it up out of the way. Save some money….
On the way out, I stopped to look at the plants – somehow it caught my attention that they were on sale. I remembered in the process my wife had only one squash plant and it was flowering a lot but not setting on…it occurred to me that we needed two to get pollination? not sure but why not get another one, well then, why not get some peppers – they had not gotten any before and I like fresh bell pepper. Well then I noticed the sale on some hanging plants things and some perennials that we needed to replace the ones in the front bed. So I ended up getting over $30 dollars worth of plants and I had gone for an extension cord that I didn’t buy cause it was $15? Something wrong here?
I got the plants home, repotted some for a hanging planter , put out the peppers and squash, reset the water mister to wet it al down and put the other pots for the front bed out there so the wife could pick where? The picking where didn’t happen so maybe tomorrow they will get planted?
The landscape crew was in for a little while but didn’t get very far before they had to go somewhere else today, talked to the manager this evening as he came by to check it and said they would have the Mexican back tomorrow, maybe, to get it finish formed and steel put in so they could pore concrete Thursday – then start on the rest of the rocks. He also said they would have the grasses for the power box area in tomorrow so they may be busy getting something accomplished. It might be better if I left tomorrow to help my DAD so they can get some work done? Will see how that plans out when I get up… – WD0AJG